I currently own a Nokia N95 and have been holding out for a decent Android phone to upgrade to (looks like it will be the Samsung i7500). I sync the calendar on my current phone to my work (Outlook) calendar constantly and this is a must have feature for any replacement. For reasons described in detail below, I need to do this locally, not via a Google account. I have seen many other posters ask about local calendar synchronising but nobody seems to have described a situation like mine although it must be relatively common:
Situation:
I am a middle manager in an NHS hospital in the UK. We use shared Exchange calendars, accessed via Outlook throughout the organisation- these are run by our own Trust, not NHS.net or an outsourced company. At the moment I sync my calendar to my current phone manually using a USB cable and Nokia PC suite a couple of times a day and this works fine. I have local admin privileges on my work PC but I have no access to the Exchange server. Apart from being incredibly slow, our
N3 Internet connection has various ports blocked, making it unreliable and unsuitable for calendar syncing.
Google calendar appears to use port 9080 for syncing. Aside from this some of my calendar entries are confidential and should be handled in compliance with Caldicott guidelines.
Here is a sample summary of these guidelines from another (not my) NHS Trust but in brief, I should not be sending data via a third party, especially not via the USA.
Question
Given that
- I need to use my shared calendar to do my job
- I have to use Outlook at work
- I have no admin access to the Exchange server
- I cannot and should not sync my work Outlook calendar with a Google calendar or any other third party server via the Internet
- I need to be able to update my Outlook and mobile calendars in both directions
What is out there for someone in my position? (I am guessing not much). Is there anything planned? What would it take to get something out there for people in my position?
Many thanks
Squiff
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